One of our lead stories this week is about Black Friday. We first used the phrase “Black Friday” in the newsletter in 1997 in the context of a sales day after Thanksgiving. Interestingly, our very first article said that it was so named because on that day, according to some electrical retailers, sales were very poor as consumers recovered from their Thanksgiving over-indulgence! However, within a couple of years we reported the, now traditional, definition that it was the day when the P&L accounts of retailers went “into the black”.
The event was very much a US phenomenon in the past, but this year, the idea came to the UK in a big way. Although plenty of UK retailers have talked about Black Friday in the past, this seems to have been the first year when we have had a real consumption frenzy, especially for flat panel TVs. Of course, global retailers such as Amazon have stoked the fires and encouraged the idea, but UK retailers have seen a bandwagon that they could jump on and have done so with enthusiasm. The sudden increase in demand caused problems with crowds in shopping centres, fighting among those that wanted the best deals and plenty of stories of websites unable to keep up with demand.
We also report in our 342 story on “Singles Day”, an idea from Ali Baba in China that is almost certain to be extended around the world before long as the internet accelerates globalisation. As singles day is earlier in November, it may extend the sale period even more.
There was a time when, in the UK, winter sales were held in January. The annual January sales drew the same media attention as Black Friday in the US. In some countries, such as France, legislation mandated fixed sales periods in January and in July (although the law in France was somewhat relaxed in 2009, as similar laws had been earlier in Germany in 2004). Over the last few years, as retailers came under pressure from the combination of an economic downturn and the arrival in the mainstream of web sales, they moved the start of the sales period forward to before the Christmas period. That was quite a change – in the past it was very hard to find discounts just before Christmas.
(Of course, part of that is a switch from scarcity to abundance. I am old enough to have been issued with a “ration book” as a child and while the UK is a wealthy country, the 1950s were a time of real austerity in Europe.)
Personally, I’m deeply uninterested in these consumption fests. I have to confess to paying particular attention to the offers from Richer Sounds, this year, but more out of curiosity than anything else. My own shopping habits changed many years ago to using the internet and apart from helping with the grocery shopping (my wife doesn’t like doing this online), I estimate that I probably visit our local town centre or malls for shopping purposes, no more than two or three times per year in total.
As a market researcher, I’m fond of saying that “anecdotes are not the same as research”, in other words, a sample of one doesn’t tell you very much. However, I do wonder if, as an early adopter of technology, I am simply a few years ahead of the mainstream and whether these frenzied attempts to drive the retail market are simply the flailing attempts of an industry that knows that its time is coming?
At a deeper level, scarcity has its own impact on value in life. There was a time when a lot of music was hard to find. I used to scour second hand record shops for albums of favourite players. These days, all the music you want is everywhere and free, or close to free, but it seems to be valued much less, but that’s probably a topic for another day! (Did somebody say “Veblen Goods”?)
Bob
